A rare Tavern clock by Charles Farrer.

In a mahogany case with canted and fluted corners, the hood with large turned patera and dental cornice. The circular dial with date and moon phase chapter rings and Penny moon. In very original, working condition and of good colour and patina. 490mm wide, 240mm deep and 1615mm high. Circa 1790.

Charles Farrer was born about 1761, probably at Pontefract. He married in Doncaster in 1790 to Ann Cookson. He died in Pontefract in 1817 at the age of fifty six.
The Farrer family of clockmakers are numerous and a very complicated group to understand. They began in and around Pontefract, where they mostly worked, though there is indication that the first Farrers learned their trade in the Halifax area, perhaps under the Ogden family. The first Farrers, Abraham and William, were working in Pontefract by the 1690s. Their relationship to each other is not known, though Abraham might just have been William's father. These were no country clocksmiths. They were highly proficient, fully conversant with the best London practices and styles of the day and were quite capable of making top quality clockwork.